


At What Moment

by DarkTidings



Series: Rooftop Shadow AU [2]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beth Greene Lives, F/M, Major Character Injury, Natural Disasters, Near Death Experiences, Walkers (Walking Dead), Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28641420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkTidings/pseuds/DarkTidings
Summary: It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun - Henry Wadsworth LongfellowGlenn and Beth are separated from their supply run group after a spring thunderstorm and tornado take out one of the major dams on the Chattahoochee River.  Alone, injured, and miles from home, can they keep each other safe long enough to get home to their families?
Relationships: Beth Greene/Glenn Rhee
Series: Rooftop Shadow AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2020481
Comments: 38
Kudos: 25





	1. Flash Flood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't read the prior story, this could be a little wacky, but reading it probably isn't an absolute necessity.

_It is difficult to know at what moment love begins; it is less difficult to know that it has begun - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow_

**April 27, 2011**

Glenn is always more on edge when a supply run includes one of the teenagers, even Micah, who is probably as skilled as Glenn himself. It's the thought of having to answer to their parents, he supposes. Today's group is a solid one, six people total, and they're far to the south of normal territory in an Alabama town west of one of the dams spanning the Chattahoochee.

Their people survived the winter with relative ease, better than he would have predicted back in the beginning at the quarry. With the protection of the water around the small peninsula, and the insurance of the animals added to the supplies brought in, they hadn’t lacked for food or water. They’d even allowed themselves weeks at a time in camp during the colder months, tucked in warm, snug cabins. Winter had been almost like the world hadn’t ended.

The last time Glenn was in this particular town, once they started up supply runs in the spring, he’d been accompanied by just Daryl. They found signs of a small survivor group in the area. Tracking them as best as he could before he lost the trail on pavement, the hunter noted the group had multiple children. When Quinn suggested back at home that the people might be wary of just a pair of men, they planned today’s trip. 

Quinn had been right, which isn’t unusual. They’ve got a small cluster of eight adults and six children who are willing to speak to a woman leading a half female group seeking them out that admit to avoiding a single pair of men. They aren’t entirely sold on the idea of moving to a strange community yet, but setting up lines of communication is definitely working, especially between Quinn and the group’s honest-to-God physician.

“Storm’s coming in,” Daryl notes, interrupting. The hunter is eyeing the sky to the northwest. “Don’t like the looks of it.”

When Glenn looks that direction, he agrees. Weather is something he does know a bit more about, even living in the city all his life. Thunderstorms are always a nightmare to deliver food in, so he always paid as much attention to the weather as the traffic reports. At least now it’s just the weather he has to watch.

“Think we can make it home?” he asks Daryl. Everyone’s looking now, but the clouds are rolling in fast, the type that people like to describe as angry. A random memory of science class supplies cumulonimbus instead. There’s a shimmer of green to the sky, and one thing Glenn’s learned since he moved south? Green is bad when it’s the sky.

“No. If that spawns a tornado, we don’t want to be on the road.”

His terse reply has Quinn assessing their surroundings. “Bet there’s a few storm shelters around. Y’all made note of them?”

The leader of the new group nods, his heavy dreads shifting around his face. “Not the first storm we’ve waited out here. Might not be Tornado Alley, but it’s active.”

They’re led to a pair of houses outside of town, each with its own inground storm shelter, surrounded by cobbled together barriers. Both are needed with the number of people, but the groups don’t split evenly by origin. Daryl and Quinn follow Ezekiel into the one with the majority of his people. Quinn obviously is intent on continuing her conversation with the group’s doctor. 

Glenn ends up with the rest of their group and three of theirs in the second shelter. Beth settles easily on one of the bunks, chatting with Enid and Olivia as if they weren’t all flinching as the storm arrives with pounding hail. Jacqui and Morales settle on the one opposite, both having the sort of patience most people don’t for delays. That leaves Glenn in the open doorway of the shelter, watching the golf ball sized hail bounce.

“Do you really think your community can hold?” The man standing a few steps down, watching just like Glenn, is soft spoken when he asks the question.. Before the apocalypse, Glenn might have read him as a hippie of some sort. Now? He’s learned to look under the surface. This Paul, who told them they could call him Jesus? Man is ex-military, just like Merle and Morales.

“I don’t think anything is a guarantee these days,” Glenn tells him. “But it’s the safest my people have been since this started. Being remote like it was, now that Columbus is gone, it helps.”

The man’s got pale eyes as he meets Glenn’s gaze when he looks away from the doorway. “Not just walkers to be wary of.”

It makes Glenn wonder what this group has faced, considering the raiders who attacked Maggie. Most of his people are content with the explanation of the bandits setting their own building on fire in the dead of night. Even Glenn thought it an acceptable thing, back when he was first told. But the longer he knows Merle? The more he’s seen a certain look pass between Shane and Maggie?

That fire had help, as it should have.

“I know.” 

He isn’t sure what Jesus sees in his expression, but the man gives him a solemn nod. The wind gusts harder, nearly buffeting Glenn down the steps. Jesus catches him. “Best shut the door. Something’s coming now.”

Glenn’s eyes widen, seeing the wall cloud Jesus is pointing at. The funnel is forming, and although it’s probably miles away, it’s still more terrifying than actual walkers to Glenn. Together, they slam the door shut and latch it tight.

Movies like Twister left the impression that being in a shelter would be loud somehow, but like most entertainment, they get it wrong. It’s too quiet, everything outside muffled by the mound of earth that covers the shelter. The door is rated specifically for a tornadic storm, so there’s no shifting or rattling. An unquiet part of Glenn’s mind whispers that it’s like a tomb.

“Might as well take a seat.” Jesus sinks down on the bottom step, his gaze carefully on the teen and woman from his group. “Tornado will blow over fast. Might not even reach us. But that storm will linger and last. Might be in here for hours.”

“Springtime in the South,” Beth quips, fiddling with a pouch on her backpack. She produces a deck of cards. “Anybody want to play Crazy Eights?”

Variously suggested card games pass the time, until Daryl radios an all clear. Three hours spent underground, and they emerge to widespread storm damage. The sky to the west is clear, the storms spent or moved beyond easy sight.

The two houses are still standing, but one’s roof certainly won’t hold up to the weather without extensive repair. Ezekiel’s group surveys the properties with grim expressions. One of their vehicles is overturned, a complete loss, and the other has lost both windshield and rear glass.

Morales crosses over to where their vehicles thankfully survived the damage for the most part, although the Suburban’s windshield is spiderwebbed from the hail. The Expedition next to it is in slightly better shape, but Glenn figures he’s about to get a lesson in auto glass replacement when they get back home. Following Beth over, Glenn listens as the older man radios home.

Maggie’s voice is calm when she replies. “No tornado here, thankfully. A lot of wind, but we haven’t gone out to survey further up the peninsula to see if it took any trees down. Hail busted the windshield on one of the cars. Beat up a few others. Merle’s making some noise about carports for future storms.”

“It’s getting close to dark,” Morales relays. “But we’ll probably make it a night run coming back. I’ll radio you back when Quinn confirms if it’s just us, or us plus the newbies.” 

If it were Glenn, this storm would be enough to shift his opinion on joining a new group, if their positions were reversed. More people means better resources to survive what the world throws at them, because they can’t forget Mother Nature might slap them around, too. There’s safety in numbers, now more than ever.

After Morales hangs up the radio mike, he goes to rummage in the back of a suburban and fishes clear packing tape out of a bin. Before Glenn can ask, he’s sitting in the driver seat of the Suburban, beginning to layer tape to reinforce the windshield as Jacqui joins him in the passenger seat to help. The makeshift repair will keep things stable until they get home, Glenn thinks.

“Hey, Glenn?” He looks Quinn’s way when she calls out, jogging over so she doesn’t have to yell so loud. “Can you and Beth run back to that traffic jam on the way here and snag that trailer? They’re going to head back with us tonight, and there’s some supplies that need to be taken out of the damaged house. Take the Expedition.”

It’s about half a mile back, but the area’s reasonably clear of walkers, so it should be an easy run. He agrees, slinging his backpack in the backseat and sliding behind the wheel as Beth climbs into the passenger seat. They head down the long driveway, and he hopes they’ll find something close, rather than having to venture further away from the group.

It’s another of Quinn’s less than subtle ways of giving him time around Beth, not that it’s worked so far. She’s his friend, and he certainly thinks she’s the prettiest girl he’s ever spent time with, but they’re just friends. His crush doesn’t really matter when it’s not returned.

“They had a smart idea, staying near the lake on the river,” Beth remarks as they drive. “But why so far out?”

Glenn shrugs, unsure of their reasoning. He and Daryl hadn’t explored far, retreating at the signs of other people in the area with it just being two of them. “Some people don’t like to live on the water, I guess.”

“Or something nearby. A resource further west, maybe.” 

“Anything’s possible.”

They reach the abandoned cars, navigating around two different downed trees that partially block the road. Glenn radios in their location, telling Morales about the fallen trees when he does. Beth starts checking the cars for supplies out of long ingrained habit as he does, but she goes to help him unhook the stock trailer when he approaches.

“I’ll bring the Expedition closer, now that we’ve got it backed up,” Glenn tells her as they ease the trailer’s tongue to the ground temporarily instead of extending the tongue jack. No point when they’re about to just hook it back up.

Beth stills, listening to something he doesn’t hear. They aren’t that far from the river, so there’s the sound of water, of course, but it’s actually quieter than Glenn’s used to from being outdoors now. Even the insects aren’t making any racket.

“What’s wrong?”

Shaking her head, Beth frowns. “I don’t know. Maybe just that the storm tossed things around. Tree finally falling or something. Just got one of those weird feelings, I guess.”

Considering how many times hunches like that have saved Glenn’s hide since the world ended, he stays on alert, and he can tell that Beth does, too. It doesn’t take long to hook the trailer up to the Expedition, but just as Glenn’s declaring it done, Beth’s tilting her head again. She walks to the rear of the trailer.

He listens, too, and then he hears it. The rumbling sounds like a train approaching, and his first thought is to look skyward, after all those tales about tornadoes sounding like trains. The sky is clear, and he shivers.

“Let’s get back. Maybe Daryl can figure out what we’re hearing,” he mutters, going to cup his hand around Beth’s elbow.

“Oh my God.” The utter terror in Beth’s voice makes Glenn’s blood run cold, and there’s nothing he’s been prepared for to survive this. He snatches at her, grabbing her tight.

The wall of water hits them, the impact feeling like he’s been hit by a truck. How he hangs on to Beth, he doesn’t know, but they’re tumbled around as he tries not to scream like instinct demands they do. Despite the warmth of the late April day, the water feels freezing. There’s an impact to his ribs from debris, and he grunts in pain as they are thrust to the surface, bobbing along like children’s toys thrown into the river.

Something big hits them next, an entire fucking tree. There’s more pain, and worse, he loses hold of Beth. Struggling to stay away, to try to swim, he snatches branches and manages to snag them somehow. It keeps him above water, just enough, and he screams Beth’s name despite the futility of being heard over the roar of water set free from manmade confines.

Sobbing, he realizes he can’t see out of his left eye, but he can’t make himself let go to see what’s wrong. A flick of his tongue clarifies it’s blood running down his face, the copper tang more familiar than he would like. He can’t seem to move at first, but as the shoreline rushes by, he finally gets a leg up onto the branch and straddles it like the world’s weirdest surfboard.

“Beth!” He can’t see her anywhere near the tree, not caught in the branches, or in the water nearby. Frantic, he scrapes his hands raw trying to get higher, praying she’s just hidden on the other side somehow.

Astride the tree is no better, and now he’s screaming again, but it’s not the girl’s name anymore. It’s just frustrated rage that they’ve survived so much, only to get taken out by a fucking flood. The odds of the petite teenager surviving the debris strewn current are so very small he can’t even imagine it happening. 

His earlier thoughts come back to haunt him, the worried unease he had about Beth being with the group, and it feels like he jinxed himself. Punching the unforgiving bark of the tree doesn’t help one bit.

Exhausted, he finally collapses atop the tree, feeling almost motion sick from the bobbing and swaying in the flooded river. All he can do now is hope his improvised raft survives long enough to come to shore somewhere. Maybe by then he’ll have found the courage for the long walk back to face Beth’s family and his own.

Failure is a bitter taste in his mouth. He thought he knew the feeling before, when he disappointed his father, but it’s nothing on this. It feels like his chest is being crushed, grief and rage warring for dominance. 

“I’m so sorry, Beth,” he cries brokenly. So, so sorry.” 

Grief wins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to explore a story for these two that wasn't directly based on walkers or banditry forcing them away from the others. When Quinn Dixon suggested the group settle on the peninsula on West Point Lake, one of the things she mentioned was the potential for dam failure along the Chattahoochee River. Their settlement is above that dam, so reasonably safe, but most of the dams along the Chattahoochee are aged and would be ticking time bombs.
> 
> Set six months after MtSF ended, the storm is loosely based on the Super Outbreak of late April 2011 that spawned 216 tornadoes across 16 states just on April 27th. The area they're in didn't actually get a tornado, but well, what better disaster to collapse the dam below Lake Eufaula? 
> 
> Primary Pairing and POVs: Glenn/Beth. Some POVs from those searching for them will likely be used (like the trailing scenes I use in the _Lost Deputy_ series), but the main focus will be Glenn and/or Beth's POV in each chapter.


	2. A Long Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glenn's injuries put Beth in charge of their safety overnight.

**April 27, 2011**

Beth Greene has never been more terrified in her life than she is when she’s towed along, tangled in the roots of a tree that was probably old before her father was even born. The pressure of the water keeps her from climbing higher, and her body is chilled from the cold water. She thinks she hears Glenn, but the water is loud and she can’t make herself heard over it.

It seems like it takes hours before the rush of water slows. The tree hits something, maybe branches tangling along the bank, and spins the roots forward in the water instead. There’s another spin, slower, and her stomach lurches like the time she got sick after the roller coasters at Six Flags. At least throwing up in the water rinses away the mess.

Eventually, the tree gets stuck on something. Beth stays hidden among the roots for a little while, watching the debris in the river swirl by. Finally, some sense of self preservation kicks in, reminding her that late April is not the time to be in the water, even in Georgia. Climbing up the roots like a weird sort of jungle gym, she reaches the trunk.

“Glenn?” 

She hadn’t been imagining hearing him, and relief surges through her. He isn’t moving though, so relief switches to fear. Scrabbling toward him across the rough bark, she reaches his ankle and shakes it. “Glenn!”

There’s no reaction, and fear becomes terror, until she sees his chest rise and fall. “Oh, thank God.”

Shaking him again, she’s more forceful, torn between worry she’ll hurt him in some way and a desperate need for him to wake up. “Glenn, please wake up. Please, Glenn.” She’s sobbing and trying to figure out a way to climb over him without knowing if he’s injured, so she almost misses him mumbling.

“Glenn!” 

When he raises his head to look at her, she’s almost more scared, because the left side of his face is swollen and bloody. He can’t seem to focus on her, and her first aid training with Quinn helpfully supplies the word concussion. “C’mon, Glenn. I need you awake. We need to get off this tree before it decides to keep going downriver.”

Beth tries to remember the geography of the Chattahoochee. They’ve all been required to try to memorize the maps of the area around Columbus, but today they were around ninety miles south of home. As fast as the water was flowing, they could be anywhere, and it’s almost full dark now. They lost over an hour on the water.

South of the dam created lake, the river keeps going to where it stops being called the Chattahoochee in Florida, she dredges up from foggy memory. From there, it has a different name, despite being the same actual river. There are no homes that she can see, although the flooding would probably ruin any geographical references even if she was familiar with the area.

“Beth?” Glenn’s voice is groggy and sounds disbelieving.

“Hey, Glenn. Yeah, it’s me.” She smiles wanly at him and drags him into her arms. He’s as chilled as she is, so she knows she has to get them somewhere she can get them both warm, and soon. Their packs were in the Expedition, so that’s no use to them, but their community is run by sometimes paranoid people, when it comes to survival. She isn’t exactly devoid of supplies, if she can just get Glenn moving.

One of his hands manages to find her cheek, patting as if he doesn’t think she’s real. “Beth,” he repeats. What light she has from the setting sun shows her his pupils aren’t dilated equally. Dammit, at best a concussion. At worst, something her daddy can’t fix.

“C’mon, Glenn. I can’t carry you. You’ve got to get up. Climb up to that branch there, and then we can get onto the river bank. Please, Glenn, please.”

The plaintive note in her voice seems to register for the young man, so he struggles to follow her as she eases by him. As long as she keeps talking, he follows, so Beth babbles even as the bark scrapes her hands raw and bites into her skin even through the fabric of her pants. They reach the branch, and that’s a little easier to grab onto. Glenn is so clumsy, such a contrast to his normal nimble self, that it breaks her heart, but he makes it to the muddy, debris strewn ground at last.

“Stay with me, Glenn. I don’t know where we are, but it’s getting dark.” There are likely gators around here normally, snakes, too, but Beth’s hoping the flood chased away all the dangerous wildlife. There are reasons they don’t travel after dark if they can help it. At least walkers would be as prone to flood damage as any other thing.

The others will come looking for them, once they realize the dam failed. She needs to leave some sort of sign for Daryl to find. Shedding her outer shirt, a flannel that works well in the April chill, she pulls off her tank top under it and climbs high enough into a tree to tie it off a branch that should stay clear of the water. The bright pink shirt is grungy now, but the color will still be vivid to Daryl’s sharp eyes.

Glenn’s carefully looking away when she climbs back down. “Geez. My bra covers more than a bikini top, Glenn,” she mutters, but she gets the flannel shirt back on and buttoned. He’s always looked away when she’s swimming, too. It’s rude of her to fuss about him being polite. “Let’s go.”

Taking his hand, she leads Glenn toward the north. It’s the only direction that makes sense, until she figures out where they are. They reach the remains of what she thinks was a marina, based on what little is above water right now. The building isn’t safe, standing in at least a foot of water, but beyond it is the best sight she’s seen since the wall of water came for them.

A road, leading east.

If there’s a marina, maybe there are houses nearby. She can figure out where they are, and get them indoors until daylight. Tightening her hand around the hunting knife she slides out of its sheath, she stays on alert. Using their guns would be even riskier than normal now, after being immersed in dirty water. She supposes she should be grateful neither of them lost guns or knives, and she can feel the weight of the small emergency kit in the thigh pocket of her cargo pants.

Finding the restaurant on the little inlet turned lake seems like a miracle. It flooded earlier, but the water has receded, and from the water line on the steps, it didn’t make it all the way up to the porch. Taking a risk, she leads Glenn up to the steps. “Stay right here,” she tells him leaning him against the porch railing.

It’s terrifying, thinking of clearing a building all on her own, but she’s trained for this. She’s put down walkers, always as part of a pair and most often with Glenn. Glancing back at him, she sees how he can barely stand, and it firms her resolve. Banging on the doors, she adds her voice. “Hey. Hey! Anyone inside?”

Sometimes it seems stupid, saying ‘anyone’ when she’s really expecting walkers, but one day it might be a person inside a building, right? Just because they haven’t found any survivors aside from the Alabama group in a while, doesn’t mean it can’t happen.

There’s a growl, and she waits, even as she bites back a whimper at knowing there is a walker inside this place. Glenn needs somewhere warm and safe. She has to do this.

“Flashlight, Beth.” Glenn’s words are slurred, but it reminds her that he wears little pouches on his belt like the deputies do. He’s managed to unfasten one, handing her the small Maglite. By some miracle, it didn’t get waterlogged. The tiny ray of light shows her a smallish male walker lumbering her way. Just one.

Opening the door, she trips the walker just like Shane taught her. It can’t react as fast as a human, so she gets her hunting knife buried in its rotted skull before it can get to her or Glenn. Dragging it away from the steps in the parking lot in case they need to run, she returns to the door and bangs again.

Nothing comes, so they venture inside, with Beth latching the door. With all the glass of the dining room of the restaurant, it’s a pretty bad place to shelter from walkers, but she’ll take what she can get. Restaurants have back rooms, after all. If they’re really lucky, this one hasn’t been raided.

Room by room, Beth checks them all, even the stalls in the men’s bathroom. The single walker seems to be the only one. She leads Glenn into an office, unwilling to risk the storeroom and its larger space. “Sit,” she orders, and he complies without any argument. The manager’s chair rocks a bit, fancy enough as an office chair for that. “Stay put while I see if their first aid kit is still here.”

The lucky part about a restaurant, Beth knows, is that they’re usually well prepared for accidents. The first aid kit is a deluxe, expensive one, and she dumps the contents into a warming pan meant for the buffet line out in the dining area. Leaving the pan for a moment, she goes and makes sure the rear door is locked, too, because walkers aren’t all that’s out there. Her sister’s flinches may come rarely now, but she remembers Maggie’s bruised and battered face all too well.

That thought makes her take a little longer to position glassware and big metal sheet pans in places around the doors and windows where there’s no getting inside without making a loud racket. The place doesn’t seem to be raided, but she can tell it wasn’t restocked properly before the virus brought everything to a halt. Either way, she shuffles bottles of expensive water into her pan. She’ll find food later.

Glenn’s where she left him, looking half asleep. “No, Glenn. You can’t sleep. Not yet.”

He blinks a few times, focusing on her in the bare light provided by the small flashlight. “Secure?”

“Yeah, it’s secure as I can make it.” She hands him a water bottle. “Drink that while I search the office. They would need something in case of the electricity going out.”

There’s probably a generator out back, in a place this remote, but she knows those are noisy, and mechanical things aren’t her best area. But no one relies solely even on those, and she’s proven right when she finds a box with emergency candles and matches. Lighting the candles, she can at least see Glenn better now.

“Alright. I gotta see what’s wrong with your face, Glenn. I’m sorry.” He just nods, putting down the half finished water bottle on the desk. As stoic as he tries to be, there’s no hiding the small sounds of pain as she cleans away the muck from the river, leaving the scabbing for last. It looks too fragile, barely holding a jagged cut that snakes from his cheekbone to his hairline, and there’s blood seeping around it. 

“How bad?” he asks, and she knows she hasn’t kept her face placid enough.

“I think it needs stitches.” The first aid kit didn’t have anything for sutures, but Beth’s little emergency kit in her pocket has fishing line and sewing needles. She’s actually spent more time practicing sutures with fishing line and dental floss than the actual medical supplies intended for the process. Glenn’s own kit is long gone, nothing but a flap of fabric left where the pocket on the side of his pants ripped away in the river.

“Alright. I trust you.” He smiles weakly, trying to reassure her.

It takes half an hour for her to clean, sanitize, stitch, and treat the cut. Glenn’s eye is still swollen, but once she’s done, he takes the cold pack she activates and presses it to his eye with a sigh of relief. He’s shivering now, and she wishes the restaurant was one of those with tablecloths. Instead, she spreads out the emergency blanket from her kit, glad that the whole thing was mostly waterproof. 

“Wrap up in this. I’m going to find us something to eat.”

Glenn obeys easily, taking the water bottle when she hands it back to him. His gaze seems a little clearer now, as if the pain of the stitching brought some awareness back to him. “You need to drink, too.”

Smiling at him, she nods. “I will. Let me figure out some food first.”

The sucky part of this having been a seafood restaurant is that they don’t have a lot of things salvageable. When she finds a menu to look over with the little flashlight, it confirms her search of the storeroom. “Green beans it is, unless this stove works by some miracle.”

It’s possible, since it’s a gas stovetop. This far out, she bets daylight will reveal a propane tank somewhere near the building. Figuring it can’t hurt to try, she turns the knob, letting out a mini-whoop when it turns on. Using more of the bottled water, she measures it in a pan, along with a scoop from the container of grits. There’s rice, too, but that’ll take longer to cook, and they both need something warm to eat.

While she waits on the water to boil, she finds a canister of hot cocoa mix and is glad Glenn’s in the office out of sight. The dance she just did probably made her look eight, not eighteen. Heating more water, she cleans mugs to go alongside the bowls, and waits.

When she gets back to the office with the serving tray loaded with a coffee carafe full of hot cocoa, two mugs, and two bowls of grits sugared enough to make Beth’s late mama groan and complain about dentist trips, Glenn’s asleep. It hasn’t been long, and she debates between letting him sleep versus eating and getting cleaned up. He looks so exhausted, face mostly clean thanks to her efforts, but clothes wet and grimy.

“Hey, Glenn? I got something warm for you to eat,” she calls out softly, setting the tray on the desk in the center of the manager’s big desk calendar.

Blinking blearily, he manages to focus on her. “Smell chocolate.”

“Yeah. Apparently, they served hot cocoa here. Figured that was probably better than coffee for us.” 

He takes the bowl closest to him first, though, hands shaking as he lifts the spoon. There’s no comment about the food being so heavily sweetened, but he knows they need the calories as much as she does. Pouring them both mugs full of cocoa, she perches on one end of the desk to eat. Her clothes are half dry now, but still cold and clammy against her skin.

“You need to get warm, too,” Glenn tells her. He’s looking better now, even if the bruising looks awful. “Maybe someone left a uniform shirt around? So you can get out of some of the wet clothes.”

“I’ll look once I finish eating.” Despite the fact that she had a perfectly good lunch back with their people, it feels like her stomach is going to devour her if she doesn’t fill it up. It doesn’t take long to empty the bowl and drain the mug. Refilling both of their mugs, she takes the empty bowls back into the kitchen and sets them in the sink, leaving one of the emergency candles on the countertop.

Testing the water gives her nothing from the cold tap, and enough of a trickle from the hot tap that she shuts it off immediately. It’s probably not safe to drink, not without treatment after months of sitting undisturbed in a hot water tank, but it’ll work for washing up. Glenn’s right about spare uniforms. Breaking into the employee lockers by flashlight gains her a pair of shirts that probably belonged to someone Merle’s size, not hers, but they’ll do. 

Getting naked is probably a bad idea, but her clothes are filthy and mostly wet. She strips down and uses the tap water sparingly to wet a dish towel and scrub herself as clean as she can manage. Rinsing out her bra and panties, she knows putting the wet panties back on is not the most hygienic thing to do, but going without seems worse. The bra she leaves hanging to dry, alongside her flannel shirt, cargo pants, and socks. No one’s been here in months, based on the dust everywhere, and walkers can’t open doors.

Clad in the long t-shirt, she makes her way back to the office, shivering with the chill. The couch looks older than Beth, but it’ll be their bed tonight. Glenn’s dozing again, so she shakes him awake. “Do you want to try to clean up?” she asks. “I can help.”

Candlelight doesn’t hide his blush at the thought. “I can manage.”

“Alright. There’s some water in the hot water tank still, and dish towels by the sink.” Handing him the candle she brought back to the office, she takes the emergency blanket, wrapping the silvery foil material around herself. As soon as he’s out of sight, she calls out, “Don’t put those pants back on wet.”

Glenn listens to her, and he’s shivering when he returns to the office, wearing nothing but a restaurant logoed t-shirt and damp boxers. She makes him hold still while she checks the areas he’s bruised. Nothing seems to be broken, just like her own bruises, so she points at the couch.

“We’ll share the blanket. It’s not winter time, but it’s not exactly warm at night yet, either.”

It’s a sign of how bad he feels that he doesn’t argue at all, just settles on the couch, pressing his back against the worn fabric and leaving room for her. He’s snoring within minutes, and as she starts to feel sleepy once she’s warm from shared body heat and the blanket, she sets the timer on her watch for two hours. She’ll need to check on Glenn and look around, but she's too tired to just stand watch. 

It’s going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For any readers who didn't read the first story, keep in mind this is not a Beth who was traumatized enough to attempt suicide, and she's got a Dixon foster mother and is Shane's sister-in-law. Expect a lot more naturally badass Beth. 😉


	3. Making a Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glenn wakes with little memory of getting away from the river, and he and Beth scavenge their small area for supplies while waiting to see if the others will find them.

**April 28, 2011**

Glenn is a strange mixture of too warm and almost chilled at the same time. Groggily, he realizes it’s his legs that are cold, and automatically fishes around with one foot to figure out where his blanket has ridden up to. That brings him into contact with other legs and an immediate awareness that he’s not alone in bed.

Nor is he in a bed, because he’s sandwiched between the back of a couch and a very warm, very feminine form whose legs are as bare as his are. His brain spins, aching as he tries to piece everything together. It’s almost like a hangover, until he reaches up to feel the bandage on his face.

The flood! Losing Beth. There’s a surge of grief and loss at that, before reality comes back to him that he’s not alone.

“You gonna keep wiggling around or fix the blanket?” a sleepy voice murmurs. “Not daylight enough to get up yet.”

It sounds like Beth, but he lost her in the raging flood waters. How hard did he hit his head? Is this a complete hallucination? He can’t imagine any other way he would wake up half naked with someone next to him that is most definitely female.

His lack of a response earns him a sigh. There’s fumbling on the floor before a flashlight flicks on, and his companion flips to her back to stare up at him. “You okay, Glenn? Oh, Jesus, your face looks worse this morning.”

Before he can respond, because his brain is short circuiting on seeing Beth’s delicate features, she’s on her feet, fumbling in a metal bin across the room. The glow of the flashlight she carried with her illuminates long, pale legs below the edge of a shirt too short to be a nightshirt and too long to be a regular t-shirt. He looks away when he catches a flash of lace-edged panties, because he’s starting to think this isn’t all in his head.

She returns with an ice pack, squishing it between her hands to activate the chemicals. “Bet that feels like hell,” she mutters, wrapping the pack in a cloth and pressing it to his face. “You need some meds? All I got is Tylenol or ibuprofen, but it’s better than nothing, right?”

Glenn takes the ice pack from her automatically, still staring. “You’re real.”

That makes her giggle. “Yeah, and my feet say it’s still too early in the year to be in a drafty room barefoot.” 

“I thought…” He swallows hard, but his voice still cracks. “I thought you were lost in the river.”

“You don’t remember getting here at all, do you?” Beth asks softly, reaching out to brush his hair back from his face. “I was afraid of that, because you were really out of it when we finally got stuck somewhere long enough to get to the bank. I’m fine, Glenn. Probably in better shape than you are.”

She pads away, before returning with a bottle of some type of flavored sparkling water and a packet of Tylenol. “Take these.”

Once she’s torn the packet open, he swallows both tablets obediently and empties half the bottle because he’s just that thirsty. Flushing in embarrassment, he offers her the rest, and she sips at the bottle while watching him. “Where are we?”

“Some little restaurant down off Lake Seminole, based on the menus and paperwork I’ve seen. I rigged stuff at all the windows and doors.”

“Holy shit. That’s a long way from home.” Even with what is probably a concussion, Glenn’s brain supplies the geographical reference. West Point Lake and Lake Seminole are nearly two hundred miles apart. Less than half a day’s drive before the turn, but now? Jesus, that’s a long way back.

“Yeah. I figure they’ll be looking for us downstream, so we probably don’t want to go too far from the river.” She shivers a little, which makes Glenn assess things a bit more. He’s under one of their silver emergency blankets, but the fact that she was sleeping with him tells him it’s probably the only one they have. “You’re cold. Come lay down.”

Beth smiles brightly, replacing the cap on her water bottle and sitting it somewhere out of sight before switching off the flashlight. He hears the rustle of the blanket as she tugs it over his legs and then she’s pressed against him, facing him this time. It’s a fact that he’s grateful for at first, because spooning with Beth seems like a bad idea when neither of them are wearing pants.

Then she curls into his body, tucking her head against his shoulder and tangling their legs together, and he realizes it can be a lot more intense. As much as he knows they need the warmth, she’s also braless, and the shirts they’re wearing are not much barrier. His head aches, as well as his ribs, but that doesn’t mean he’s not almost twenty-three and essentially half naked in bed with the girl he’s been enamored of for months. “Uh, Beth? I’m not sure this is appropriate.”

“Yeah, well, until our clothes are dry, you’ll just have to endure me being so close,” she mutters, and there’s a tenseness in her frame that wasn’t there before. The arm she had tucked around his waist retreats, bending close to her torso so that she’s no longer pressed to his chest.

“Beth, I didn’t mean it like that,” Glenn replies, knowing he’s offended her. He fumbles to perch his ice pack on the back of the couch before wrapping Beth in a clumsy hug. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. We’re both really tired.” She untucks her arm to return the hug, breath warm against his neck.

“Get some sleep then.” Guilt washes over him, knowing that she somehow got them both to safety, and he can’t even remember how it happened. The least he can do is be a life sized body warmer for her, right? If his body keeps trying to react, he’ll just think of something awful to make it behave.

Once her breathing evens out, Glenn reaches for the ice pack again, hoping to work on the swelling that makes opening his left eye difficult. He should have asked her about the injury, but for her to fall asleep so quickly, she really is exhausted. There’s enough time for that in the morning.

When he opens his eyes next, there’s light coming from the open doorway. Beth is still asleep against him, but now she’s draped over him and he’s more on his back. It’s a wonderful way to wake up, except her thigh is firmly pressed somewhere significant, and his body is very happy about that. He allows himself exactly five seconds to enjoy it before he shakes her shoulder gently.

“Beth? It’s daylight, and I need to go to the bathroom.” As full as his bladder is, that’s only half the reason he needs to escape.

She mumbles a bit before blinking and rolling off the couch to her feet. “Me too. Need to see if our clothes are dry, too.”

Yawning, she hands him the water bottle from last night before she grabs her knife and ventures out of the room. Taking a few minutes to center himself, he manages to get to his feet and find his own knife. The floor is chilly, but not terribly so, so he follows her.

Their clothes are draped in the kitchen, and a quick check tells him they aren’t fully dry, but close enough. It’ll be damp socks and boots that will be the problem if they have to hike, but they don’t have a lot of choice. This isn’t exactly a good place to hole up until they’re found, and his head tells him that traveling probably isn’t in their best interest for today at least. He’d be a danger to Beth, not an asset.

Beth emerges from the room marked employee bathroom, motioning him toward it. “No running water, other than what’s in the hot water tank. I’ll get us some breakfast started.”

Nodding, Glenn takes his turn, coming out to see that Beth’s donned pants in his absence and has both of their socks on a sheet pan on the stovetop with burners under it while she babysits a pot of water. When she sees him, she smiles over her shoulder. 

“Figure if you can dry them on a radiator, that might work, too. We’ll have some grits in a bit, before we venture outside. I can see some cabins down by the lake, and it might be better to move down there, depending on whether or not they flooded. This place is poorly stocked since they were some sort of seafood place.”

“Okay.” Glenn reaches for his pants, finding them mostly dry and knowing body heat will finish it off, he tugs them on. “If nothing else, we can see if we can find a boat and get it running so we can try to head back upstream.”

“Sounds like a plan, but not for another day. You definitely had a concussion, and I’m not moving out until I’m sure you’re stable.” Beth measures grits into the water. “I left my tank top tied up in a tree where we left the river, so surely Daryl can find us from that.”

Glenn finds her confidence reassuring, and she’s right. There’s no way in hell that Daryl won’t lead a team of folks to come looking for them. It’s unlikely the flood reached the new people’s camp, because they were just too far away, although he suspects getting back home for everyone would involve a long trip north through Alabama to the next river crossing.

“Maybe we should camp out near the river?”

Beth shrugs, giving her pot a stir. “We could, if we find a tent somewhere. I don’t want to get caught out in the rain or the bugs. Flooding stirs animals up, too, so displaced wildlife could be a problem.”

“Or more water coming down the river. There’s more than one dam above us that could give way.” It’s not like Shane and Quinn haven’t had them checking the bridges and dams, apparently a lot more hyper aware of the possibility than Glenn had really been.

“Yeah. I don’t want to think about that.” Beth shivers, making Glenn wonder how she’d survived their trip downriver. He doesn’t ask, not right now.

“I got another pot of boiling water for hot chocolate. They have a big can of the powder mix here that was still good.”

Glenn takes the hint and fills two mugs and then a carafe. Beth’s starting to spoon up bowls of grits, so he checks their socks and flips them on the sheet pan. “I think it’s working.”

“Good. We can scavenge, but those cabins were rentals according to the pamphlet in the office, so I’m not counting on a lot of luck.”

They eat standing up in the kitchen, both checking on their socks periodically. It is nice to put the toasty warm things on his feet, and he’s glad that he switched his boots from the heavier winter ones to a lighter pair for this trip. Beth’s cowboy boots also seem to be dry, although the leather will never be the same.

Glenn rigs a bag out of his other t-shirt to carry a couple of small containers of hot chocolate powder and grits, several bottles of water, and all the useful items Beth scavenged. If they don’t find anywhere safer to stay, they can always return here to wait until she deems him fit for travel. He’s trained with Quinn, but it’s minor stuff compared to Beth studying with both her father and Quinn, so he’ll trust Beth’s judgement.

There are seven cabins that didn’t manage to get flooded out of the twelve adjacent to the restaurant. They search the damp and muddy cabins first, because anything above knee height should be okay, then start on the others. One of them yields a container of some sort of fish seasoning, a container of steel cut oats, and several cans of vienna sausages that the seal seems still intact on, plus a gym bag of the rough sort of clothes meant for a fishing trip.

“I’m guessing it was the only one rented out when things went bad,” Beth comments, checking the best by dates on the food before packing it into the duffle. The man was at least six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than Glenn, so she tosses the ratty pair of denim jeans and two pairs of boxers. The three t-shirts and six pairs of socks she keeps, and they load everything else into the bag.

“I wish the fishing gear was still here,” Glenn grumbles. It’s weird, being on a lake and not finding anything.

“I’ve still got my emergency pack, so I’ve got hooks and line,” Beth volunteers. “But I’m hoping we won’t be down here that long. Let’s check that shed. I’m betting that’s where they keep the maintenance stuff for the cabins.”

That poses a problem because of the lock, until Beth reminds him there’s a simple lockpick in her kit. He’s better at locks than Beth, so she passes it over. The shed is musty and dark, locked since before things turned bad. Poking around, Beth finds a machete, another flashlight that still works, and exactly what Glenn was wanting… the maintenance man’s fishing gear.

“This will be a lot nicer than rigging something myself,” Beth tells him, smiling brightly. They close the shed up and head toward the bank of the lake. It doesn’t take Beth long to set up and cast, although she isn’t optimistic. “Always heard fishing after a flood is hit or miss.”

Glenn is dealing with bouts of nausea and his head feels like complete shit, but he manages to turn over the leaf litter nearby and collect a handful of the smaller red wigglers that Quinn’s kids have stocked in actual worm beds back home. When he brings them to Beth, she grins. “You’re a regular Dixon nowadays, aren’t you?”

“Getting there. Probably easier to go for bream than bass right now.” The smaller fish are more likely to scurry towards shore and undergrowth in the water now that the water’s receded, and his ongoing outdoorsman education reminds him they’re better with live worms or crickets.

Beth switches from her lure to the first of the worms, while Glenn settles for keeping an eye out on anything approaching by land or water. It’s been more than twelve hours since they were sent to get the trailer, but much of that would have been during the active flood and then darkness. Even Daryl wouldn’t chance a flooded river in the dark. He’d trust them to get to safety, just like Beth managed for them last night.

In the time it takes Beth to bring in four fish, he doesn’t spot anything bigger than a circling hawk and one curious squirrel. A bag of charcoal briquettes left behind at one of the cabins lets Beth line a shallowly dug pit with coals and drop in foil packets of fish. She leaves him to babysit it while she moves along the overgrown greenery, coming back with her shirttail loaded with young greens. Glenn liberates a small pot from the cabin to boil their greens.

“How long do you think we should stay put?” Beth asks, dividing their fish between two plates. None of the cabins were stocked for food, leaving that to the tenant, but all had a basic assortment of dishes, cookware, and linens. 

“Honestly? We need to give it a few days. I lost my radio in the river, but we can’t follow the riverbank exactly, not safely after that flood. If we stay put, they’ll be able to find us.” 

Plus they have vehicles and resources Glenn and Beth don’t right now. Unless they trek further away from the river, there’s no vehicles to be found, and only an ancient canoe anywhere they’ve explored. Glenn might trust it to fish close to the banks, or even to explore the lake’s shoreline, but there’s no way they could really get upriver in it safely.

Beth studies the area even as he drains water off the greens and splits them between their plates. “We’ll need to collect water and treat it. Fish and new growth should keep us eating decently, and we can always go fetch a few of those restaurant sized cans of green beans.”

“If no one’s found us after four days, we’ll need to try to find somewhere else. Better clothes, maybe some sort of transportation. Who knows? We might even find someone out this way that has a ham radio setup we can rig to call home.” Four days also gives Glenn more time to get over the blow to his head that has him still a bit off kilter.

With a plan of sorts in place, they settle in for lunch. Glenn’s almost one hundred percent confident that Daryl will lead a group right to them, and at least here they have shelter, reasonable ability to feed themselves, and it’s so remote that gators are more likely than walkers. Now that he doesn’t have to return to tell everyone he lost Beth, there’s little that can ruin his optimism that they’ll get home safely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slow going for this chapter, but alas, waiting for rescue won't quite work out as planned.
> 
> Staying huddled inside with over a foot of snow in my yard that has this Southern girl remembering why she should move even further South... except this thing sort of took over those areas, too. :) The electric co-op is warning of rolling blackouts to cope with excessive use with everyone stuck at home. I live in a state that has literally one snow plow per county, because it rarely snows, and when it does, it usually melts within 24 hours. We haven't had weather this cold since like 1989. All of my stories set in warm climates are making me jealous! lol 
> 
> All y'all in snow, stay warm out there! News out of Texas is just heartbreaking as hell. ☹️


End file.
